The sweet invisibility of middle age. I feel like my corporeal form is disintegrating any time I get near to a sales assistant in a shop.

I went into the menswear sections of several chain stores this evening. Other than one assistant commenting about my backpack, which I'd bought in his store a year ago, no one came near me. One even forcefully turned the other way as I walked by.

My presence is n't registered. Perhaps it is, but only the way a breeze stirs a ripple on a pond. A coat rack sways, or a cluster of shirts sighs and moves as something passes by. Invisibility, I've mastered it.